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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Pages: A no pain, no sprain Rugby
By John Pages
Matchpoint
KYM Limgenco was a schoolmate at the UP Cebu College. He is a lover of many sports: softball, football and F1 racing. But the sport he loves most is rugby.
Yes, rugby. The sport we watch on TV where men without padding and helmets roll over, bump, and crash unto each other like dominoes.
I asked Kym, who sits as general manager of the Cebu City Rugby Football Club, to explain rugby. Here he goes:
“Mention the word rugby and the words tackling, running and bruising come to mind. It wouldn’t be hard to understand why these words would be the best description.
But what if you were told that there’s a rugby game that doesn’t involve hard physical contact. Impossible? Not really. Many people around the world play this kind of rugby. It’s called ‘Touch Rugby.’
According to Wikipedia, touch rugby started in Australia as a ‘park game’ and as a training technique for contact rugby in the
1950s. As more people played it, competition developed. Soon, associations emerged. Matches have been played since 1978 and the 1999 World Cup in Sydney attracted teams from over 20 nations.
One of the best aspects of touch rugby is its broad appeal. It is played by both sexes, and in age divisions from primary school children to those over 50 years-old. The game’s mixed version (where both male and female players play together) is very popular.
Touch rugby helps to develop essential skills and fitness for use both in rugby and other sports. It also requires less equipment. Since kicking is not part of the game, posts are not required and the game can be played with minimal facilities. Beach touch rugby is also popular.
There is no single set of rules for touch rugby. It is often played informally since, as a light contact sport, there is no need for strict third-party refereeing. In addition to tackles being replaced by touches, touch rugby has a number of advantages over the traditional game. It is easy to learn you play it without fear of injury. As a result, it is a popular social game. Many schools have included touch rugby as part of their curriculum.
Right now, the Cebu City Rugby Football Club, together with Castrol, is holding the 1st CCRFC-Castrol Touch Rugby League.
The league is played every Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Camp Lapu-Lapu with 10 teams joining. The league is playing a double round robin elimination format and the top eight teams advance. The event is now on its sixth week and will finish mid-September.
The CCRFC will also soon be hosting the Hong Kong Pot Bellied Pigs Rugby Football Club (http://www.potbellies.org) to play the very first 15-a-side full contact rugby game since 1943. The Pot Bellied Pigs are a well-traveled club that plays against rugby clubs all over the world. This year, they have chosen to include Cebu in their schedule.
The group is conducting free Touch Rugby clinics for boys and girls, and men and women of all ages every Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Sandtrap in Banilad from 7:30 – 10 p.m. and on Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. at Camp Lapu-Lapu in Lahug.”
To know more, visit www.ceburugby.com or contact Kym at kym.limgenco@ceburugby.com, or tel. nos. 4229656 or 09286347906.
Rugby: who would have thought this game would land in Cebu and be played by our wives and children?
NFL quarterback Joe Theismann once said, “Rugby is great. The players don’t wear helmets or padding; they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer. I love that.”
(john@brightacademy.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 4, 2006 issue)
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